Complete or partial automation in factories, manufacturing facilities, and the like is possible through utilization of industrial control systems. Industrial controllers are special-purpose computers utilized for controlling industrial processes, manufacturing equipment, and other factory automation, such as data collection or networked systems. In accordance with a control program, the industrial controller, having an associated processor (or processors), measures one or more process variables and/or inputs reflecting the status of a controlled system and changes outputs effecting control of such system.
Industrial control systems have enabled modern factories to become partially or completely automated in many circumstances. These systems generally include a plurality of input/output (I/O) modules that interface at a device level to switches, contactors, relays and solenoids along with analog control to provide more complex functions such as Proportional, Integral and Derivative (PID) control or multi-input multi-output (MIMO) or model-reference adaptive control (MRAC). Communications have also been integrated within the systems, whereby many industrial controllers can communicate through network technologies such as Ethernet, Control Net, Device Net or other network protocols. Generally, industrial controllers utilize the aforementioned technologies along with other technologies to control, cooperate and communicate across multiple and diverse applications.
Distributed industrial systems have emerged to assist in intelligent monitoring (e.g., through sensors) of an industrial system. An example of such a system is an agent-based manufacturing control system. These agent-based systems and/or networks are evolving into robust control systems for large series production control systems. In general, an agent-based control system employs a community of autonomous, intelligent computational units referred to as “agents.” Respective agents can typically be responsible for local decision-making and control of one or more explicit portions of a manufacturing process. A key element in such a system is cooperation among the agents in order to provide a desirable global behavior of controlled systems and/or processes.
With ever shorter product life-cycles, decreasing product launch times, and increasing product variety, conventional manufacturing processes need quick deployment of tasks while maintaining high product quality and low manufacturing costs. Agent technology is well suited to addressing the control aspects of these manufacturing requirements. As autonomous decision-makers, agents are able to dynamically react to unforeseen events, exploit different capabilities of components, and/or adapt flexibly to changes in their individual environment.